Clubs off to dis­ap­point­ing start

CLARE­MONT-NED­LANDS, Su­bi­aco-Floreat and Univer­sity all strug­gled in their open­ing games of the WACA Premier Cricket First Grade Com­pe­ti­tion, los­ing their re­spec­tive 50over matches against good op­po­si­tion.

Mt Law­ley played host to the Tigers in an en­thralling con­test at Breck­ler Park, with the home team reach­ing Clare­mont-Ned­lands’ to­tal of 198 in the fi­nal over.

Fringe WA bats­man Tom Beaton was the star for Mt Law­ley, scor­ing an ex­cit­ing 89, while Matt Kelly took three wick­ets for the visi­tors.

Su­bi­aco-Floreat went down to Rock­ing­ham-Man­durah at Floreat Park by five wick­ets.

The Lions started brightly, hav­ing been sent into bat with Calum How top-scor­ing with 68, while opener Alex Mal­colm added 62 as they reached a com­pet­i­tive to­tal of 6-224.

Rock­ing­ham-Man­durah were too strong in re­ply, reach­ing the to­tal with just five wick­ets down. Bren­don Sut­ton’s 92 was a high­light, while Tom Moscarda took two wick­ets and young­ster Cam Green grabbed one in a promis­ing show­ing.

Univer­sity were out­played by a much-fan­cied Wil­let­ton out­fit at Bur­ren­dah Re­serve.

The stu­dents re­duced the hosts to 6-86 be­fore a cru­cial mid­dle-or­der part­ner­ship took the to­tal to a re­spectable 194.

Nick Maiolo (3-16) and Josh Dal­limore (3-27) took three wick­ets apiece for the stu­dents.

New sign­ing John Rogers could man­age to score only 8, but Matt Bir­rell com­posed a well-played 64 from 84 balls but it was never enough as Univer­sity fell 46 runs short.